Learning the Ropes

Learning the Ropes - 10/04/0707:55 AM

Hello,

I could use some assistance in an area I'm overwhelmed in. I picked up a book called, "Steal This Computer Book 4.0" (which is how I found out about this website), have been studying it and other works, including a posting by an unkown member under the title of Newbie Assignment: Learn (from 2003) and an ebook called Stealing the Network: How to Own the Box.

However, with the huge wealth of information this has all brought me, and the other roads it has led me down, I have become slightly overwhelmed. There are SO many programming languages I could learn and only so many hours of no sleep before I kill myself. Could someone please highlight for me a small selection of very effective programming languages I could study and in what order? And maybe reference for me a good guide for this language, if you know one.

I am not limited to one machine as I have access to a very capable Mac, Windows XP and Linux Fedora. I also have access to any other operating system I may need to learn, these are just the ones I know. Any advice?

Re: Learning the Ropes - 10/04/0702:31 PM

Well, there are a lot of aspects to "coding"; what exactly is it you're wating to code?

if you're just wanting something good and all around I'd say c++; if you're wanting to do web development (which it seems everyone is nw adays lol) I'd say PHP/MySQL/Javascript (with a background in heavy AJAX techniques)

Re: Learning the Ropes - 10/04/0704:44 PM

Is c++ soley used on and corresponding to Windows? I've heard Java Script is universal but sometimes sluggish and not always the best choice. Is this true? And can you tell me a little bit more about PHP and MySQL's specialties?

Basically, I'm really looking for languages that will be most effective in manuevering around database security systems and small organization websites. I'd like to gather some hidden information from an article based page. But in essence, an easy to learn first language to break the water for me would be a good start.

Re: Learning the Ropes - 10/04/0706:31 PM

As for Javascript, it's a web only technology, powerful when you get into the whole AJAX thing.

PHP and MySQL are again web only, this buletin board's coding language is PHP and MySQL is the database that holds all forum content (posts).

If you're one of these "oh i want to hack every website I see" then I'd highly recommend you become very well-versed in web tech, such as PHP/MySQL/Ajax items as you'll know the in's and out's of what's there and how things work to be able to check people who don't secure their coding.

Re: Learning the Ropes - 10/04/0709:29 PM

Thanks for the advise! This particular website isn't a forum, though they do have a not so often used forum. Each article is it's own display page. The owner of this particular site updates it frequently, but I have no idea how much computer security they know or are applying.

After this discussion, I think I'll start off with C++ and Javascript, then study the other web-based ones you mentioned. However, I do have one more question. What is Python, Borne, Perl and Expect? I have instances of these languages on my Linux machine (came in the software package), so I'd imagine they're not soley web-based? I recently read somewhere that they can be interchangable to some degree.

Thanks, and I apologize for all the questions, there aren't many people to ask about these things.

Re: Learning the Ropes - 10/05/0706:05 AM

Perl is a much older language, generally used only in unix however it can run in windows; it was commonly used for web development before PHP became popular. You can code in it and python for the web, though not too common anymore.